![]() | Current Issues | No.51 September 2007 |
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Olympic Charta:
It is always important to remember one’s own roots, to know where
we come from and what we are able to achieve. To read the Fundamental
Principles of the Olympic Charter (see above) reminds us that Pierre
de Coubertin and his comrades more than a hundred years ago dreamt of
a better world when founding the Olympic Movement and initiating the
Olympic Games. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) was one of
the first global movements of civil society, a network aiming at bringing
together the youth of the world to do sports and thus to symbolize friendship
and peace. With sports becoming a huge economic factor in the modern
world, the Olympic Games became commercialised as well. Extensive doping
problems make the Games rather a symbol for money ruling all parts of
life than for high ethic standards and fair play. Nowadays, nongovernmental
organisations (NGOs) like Amnesty International, Greenpeace, Human Rights
Watch, Care International, Terre des Hommes, the World Wide Fund for
Nature and many others are recognized as important actors in the international
struggle for peace, human rights, education, sustainable development
and development aid. Taking part in political discussions for example
in connection with G 8 peak meetings, they influence the international
agenda. Transparency International (TI) joined this important circle
less than 20 years ago: founded in 1993 by Peter Eigen, a former World
Bank director. The “Coalition against Corruption” succeeded
within a short time in making the fight against corruption an international
issue, changing legislation and ethic standards in a wide range of countries.
The OECD Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials
in International Business Transactions came into force in 1997 and the
United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) followed in 2001.
TI was, and still is, the answer of civil society to the challenge
of developing transparency, independent structures and civil courage
as the indispensable basis for stability of democratic institutions,
good government, social justice and the certainty of law enforcement,
democracy and human rights. Sustainable economic growth including all
parts of a population cannot be granted as long as corrupt elites just
look for their own advantage. After the end of the Cold War in the early
nineties, it became obvious that corruption was complicating, or even
preventing, the transition in the countries of the former Soviet Union
and also hampering development in many poorer countries. Since then,
TI has developed instruments to combat corruption in an efficient way.
One of the main issues in the beginning of this fight was to convince
people that corruption is not a cultural phenomenon one has to accept,
that it is not a part of daily life you cannot really attack because
it is so deeply implanted in the way people think and feel, but that
there are measures to counter corruption and to change behaviour step
by step. In 2007, more than 90 National Chapters (NC) of TI worked with
thousands of volunteers, not investigating individual cases but building
coalitions in order to encourage systematic reforms within governments,
economic life, institutions and society as a whole. Only by a co-operative
approach can long-term change be achieved, but of course TI has to be
very careful in deciding with whom it is willing to cooperate. A balance
between TI’s own independence and the necessary co-operation with
partners sometimes, in one way or the other affected by corruption themselves,
has to be found.. The NCs work autonomously, encouraging local forces
to develop their own approach and especially networking with other local
organisations. The TI-secretariat which is situated in Berlin, Germany,
supports its local branches, co-ordinates projects, develops know-how
and helps to share knowledge within the organisation. TI engages civil
society, businesses, governments and international organisations because
all of them are affected, all elements of society suffer by corruption.
So does sport. The scandal regarding the awarding of the Olympic Winter
Games 2002 to Salt Lake City threw a dark shadow over the Olympic Movement
and shook it fundamentally. The legend of sport as an “intact
world” could no longer be upheld: the expulsion of several personal
members of the IOC, the approval of an ethics code and the nomination
of an ethics commission followed. Everybody should know by now that
sport is as bad and as good as other parts of society and therefore
finds a permanent struggle, too, to defend the Olympic Spirit, to keep
fair play as a leading principle and to continue the humanistic work
started by Pierre de Coubertin.
In May 2006 the President of the IOC, Comte Jacques Rogge, stated in
a speech at the University of Tuebingen, Germany, organised by the World
Ethics Forum, that “Corruption is one of the great threats of
modern sport”. Bribing of judges and decision makers, betting
scandals, corruption regarding the construction of sport infrastructure,
sponsors trying to influence sport decisions such as nominations and,
above all, secret doping networks demonstrate the wide range of possibilities
in which sport can be corrupted.
When I joined TI Germany in 2006, after bad experiences with a lack
of transparency and undemocratic decision procedures in international
sports, a working group on “Sport and Corruption” had just
been founded. I started to work in it and within short time we managed
to bring this issue onto the international level, too. At the International
Anti-Corruption Conference in November 2006 in Guatemala we organised
a work-shop with UEFA and Play the Game being represented. Now a steering
committee on Sports and Corruption has been established with members
from Ireland, France, Switzerland and Germany.
In May 2007 the International Sports Lawyer Association (ISLA), together
with, among others, ICSSPE, organised its annual congress with a program
addressing “Sport and Doping” on the first day and “Sport
and Corruption” on the second day. The combination of both issues
helped to shed light onto the structures of national and international
sport organisations which have facilitated immoral behaviour under their
umbrellas of values for decades. Times have changed since Pierre de
Coubertin realised his ideas. Sport is no longer a synonym for a better
world, but on the contrary it looks like sport is now years behind development
in other parts of society. While great international companies implement
Business Principles, discuss Good Governance and Corporate Social Responsibility,
the Olympic Games in Beijing 2008 will challenge the IOC’s capacity
of sticking to its own ethical standards. Sport as a role model for
society, sport champions as examples for fair play and the joy of effort
– to come back to these roots of Olympism we need a great effort
within the sports movement to reform its own structures and to really
combat doping and corruption. It is not only to help the sport organisations
to achieve their own goals as laid down in the Olympic Charter but to
let the sport with its huge public attention, the media coverage all
over the world demonstrate to people in desperate situations, that you
can make a difference, that it is worth fighting. If even the Olympic
Movement is widely influenced by unethical behaviour, the hope Coubertin
wanted to bring to the youth will be destroyed and the Games will loose
their legitimate position as a symbol for human development. So time
has come now for a new coalition against corruption - with the sport
organisations on the one hand and the anti-corruption movement on the
other. Contact
Sylvia Schenk, Attorney at Law
Senior Advisor for Sports, Transparency International Vice-Chair TI-Germany Frankfurt am Main, Germany Email: Sylviaschenk@gmx.net For further information please see www.transparency.org Sylvia Schenk was an Olympic Athlete Munich 1972 (800m running), President
of the German Cycling Federation 2001 – 2004 and Member of the
Management Committee of UCI 2000 – 2005.
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